Her voice was soft and waver­ing as Clin­ton de­livered what polit­ic­al pun­dits call a heart­felt mo­ment. A theat­er crit­ic might call it a quietly power­ful per­form­ance.

One after an­oth­er, GOP com­mit­tee mem­bers ques­tioned Clin­ton about why her de­part­ment re­jec­ted Stevens' re­peated re­quests for ad­di­tion­al se­cur­ity. She de­flec­ted the ques­tions by claim­ing the re­quests were handled by State De­part­ment se­cur­ity ex­perts. The pleas nev­er got to her.

One after an­oth­er, GOP com­mit­tee mem­bers ques­tioned Clin­ton about her ad­vocacy for the ill-fated in­ter­ven­tion in Libya. She de­flec­ted the ques­tions by say­ing Pres­id­ent Obama made the fi­nal de­cision. Not her.

One after an­oth­er, GOP com­mit­tee mem­bers ques­tioned her about the stream of emails she re­ceived from polit­ic­al trouble­maker Sid­ney Blu­menth­al, who passed along in­tel­li­gence on Libya and his neg­at­ive views about the Obama White House.

They kept ask­ing: Why could a former re­port­er lobby the sec­ret­ary of State dir­ectly while there was no evid­ence that Stevens had her private email ad­dress?

The am­bas­sad­or and his ur­gent se­cur­ity con­cerns went through oth­er chan­nels, Clin­ton replied.

This is the Aldertrack free weekday political news aggregation edited by Mike Fourcher & Ramsin Canon. It includes an overview of pertinent Chicago political reporting, data and opinion from across the spectrum. Aldertrack also provides original City Hall political reporting for subscribers. Learn more here.

For two weeks of budget hearings aldermen publicly grilled city commissioners and department officials on line items, programs, and overtime, often running from morning to night. Aldertrack monitored aldermanic attendance at each budget hearing, starting with the best attended meeting, the all-day overview with Budget Director Alexandra Holt, Chief Financial Officer Carol Brown, and City Comptroller Dan Widawsky, to the final hearing on Friday October 9.

These attendance totals are based on the amount of hearings alderman attended for each individual agency, not total days they were present. And since it is common for aldermen to walk in and out of the chambers during meetings, Aldertrack, which attended every meeting, marked aldermen present if they showed up at some point in the meeting, even if it only for a few minutes. Here's our spreadsheet for a breakdown of attendance by hearing.

As Budget Vice Chair, Jason Ervin (28) attended every meeting. He took over whenever Chairman Carrie Austin (34) took a break. While some Council watchers expected Austin to break early because of her lengthy hospitalization last month, she chaired a large chunk of hearings and often stayed until the end of the day.

Aldermen with the best attendance (Top 10)

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5) - attended 28/32 meetings

Ald. David Moore (17) - attended 27/32 meetings

Ald. Raymond Lopez (15) attended 27/32 meetings

Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41) attended 26/32 meetings

Budget Chairman Carrie Austin (34) attended 26/32 meetings

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) attended 26/32 meetings

Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11) attended 26/32 meetings

Ald. Nick Sposato (38) attended 25/32 meetings

Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30) attended 25/32 meetings

Ald. Michael Scott, Jr. (24) attended 24/32 meetings

In addition to the first budget hearing, where 90% of the Council was present, the budget hearing for the Police Department and the Department of Streets and Sanitation had at least 40 aldermen present. The 9:00 a.m. morning meetings tended to have the lowest attendance rate and shortest meeting times.

We reached out to every alderman who had attendance on the lower end for comment. Most didn't respond. Aldermen who did respond were quick to point out it's common to send a staffer in their place, to have private conversations with commissioners offline, or in the case of committee chairs, to listen to a speaker that live broadcasts what happens in the chamber to their office. "Just because we aren't down there doesn't mean we aren't listening," Ald. Walter Burnett (27) told us. We noted him present at 15 of 32 meetings.

Christian Ficara, a staffer for Ald. Brian Hopkins (2), said he often sat in place for Hopkins, whose wife gave birth to a baby boy on Sep. 29. "While Alderman Hopkins was tending to the birth of his first child, myself, and at times a second member of our staff were present during the hearings. We would update the alderman on a daily basis, and he was in contact with commissioners by phone if he had questions regarding their testimony. Obviously, he did attend hearings when time permitted to be away from his wife and newborn son."

Ald. Derrick Curtis (18), another new alderman, also missed hearings for family reasons. He was on his honeymoon for most of the budget hearings. Ald. Deb Silverstein (50) wasn't present certain days due to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot (Sep. 27-Oct. 4). "I'm a very observant Jew," she told Aldertrack, "I don't even drive during it." She added that the Mayor knew and she had staff present every day.

Ald. Matt O'Shea (19) had one or two staffers at meetings in his place when he couldn't attend. He also attended the International Council of Shopping Centers convention.

Friday, October 16, 2015

We argue that this force is insufficient to halt the Taliban’s advance. The Taliban seized the provincial capital of Kunduz for two weeks and dozens of districts this year, despite the presence of 9,800 US troops in country.

The Taliban also makes the case that a force of 5,500 soldiers is not enough.

“If the invaders lost the war in Afghanistan with the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops, their hopes of reversing the tide with five thousand troops are also misguided,” the Taliban said in an official statement that was released on Voice of Jihad.

This is the Aldertrack free weekday political news aggregation edited by Mike Fourcher & Ramsin Canon. It includes an overview of pertinent Chicago political reporting, data and opinion from across the spectrum. Aldertrack also provides original City Hall political reporting for subscribers. Learn more here.

Ald. Carlos Rosa (35) released a statement on the Barbara Byrd-Bennett guilty plea, and live tweeted from a #FeeltheBern Democratic Debate watch party with Rep. Will Guzzardi. Both are Bernie Sanders delegates.

Additional Aldertrack ResourcesRead the Clout Wiki for backgrounds on Chicago's politicians.
Follow us @aldertrack for great tweets.

Congratulations! You've made it to the bottom of today's newsletter. Thanks for reading. While Bernie might be sick of hearing about Clinton's private server, we hope NO one is tired of hearing about our emails... we hope.

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

An excerpt from Pastrami on Rye viaTablet Magazine.While the war exposed Jews to other types of food, it also provided opportunities for non-Jews to learn about Jewish food. Lieutenant Colonel Harold Dorfman realized how much he missed delicatessen food when he served as navigator in a B-24 bomber on September 12, 1944. As the plane approached its target, the submarine pens of northern Germany, the pilot was ordered to inquire and record what was in each crew member’s mind. Each responded, in turn, that he was thinking about his family back home—each, that is, except for Dorfman, who said that he was consumed with a desire for a hot pastrami sandwich. The response from the pilot: “How do you spell pastrami?” The crew endured an eight-hour attack by enemy gunfire by laughing and joking about the episode. But to actually taste the unfamiliar delicacy, most had to wait until they arrived in New York eight months later on their way back to Fort Dix.

The Democrats are deeply dependent on black votes. “African-American voters,” explainsThe Cook Political Report, “accounted for Obama’s entire margin of victory in seven states: Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Without these states’ 112 electoral votes, Obama would have lost decisively.” With Obama on the ballot, black voter participation exceeded white voter participation in 2012. The great fear among Democratic Party operatives in 2016 is that African-Americans will stay home. The Democratic National Committee, looking to pump up black turnout, issued a resolution in August joining “with Americans across the country in affirming [that] ‘Black lives matter’ and . . . condemn[ing] extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children.”

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Shows the great strengths of Chicago: it's people, transportation infrastructure, and geography. Strengths which overcome the decades long incompetent Political Leadership that yet may still sink us all. Lets hope these newcomers get involved and become Political leaders too, and don't fall into the habit of just paying guys off.The Crain's piece here.